3 Best Tips for Saving on General Contractors Insurance for Small Businesses

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If you are a construction business owner, there is a very real chance that you spend too much on your contractor insurance premiums. The place where you might be overspending the most is one of the most common insurances in the industry, general contractors insurance. It’s a well-known fact that the construction projects that construction industry business owners work on, carry a more diverse range of risks, that’s no reason to be spending more than you should. Today, we’ve written about the Three Best Tips for Saving on General Contractors Insurance for specifically Small Businesses in the construction industry.

Lower Insurance Cost by Bundling Policies

The Small Business Administration has said in the past that your construction business will more than likely be responsible for general liability insurance in addition to property and vehicle insurance for each site and job as well as overall. If you live in higher cost to do business states like California, New York or Michigan, you might also be required to have other types of insurance too. These can be insurance policies like unemployment insurance or workers compensation. A great way to save on all of these policies is to try bundling. In your personal life, you may have heard commercials about bundling your home and auto. You can think of this in the same way. Talk to the holder of your general contractor’s insurance about bundling with the other types of insurance you need. In exchange for the increased business, they often offer a discount that’s better than getting the best individually prices policies you can.

Preventative Measures to Stop (and Lower) Premium Raises

Theft can be a huge problem in the construction insurance and job site worlds. When materials and equipment get stolen, you have a lot of extra work that needs to be done usually in short notice. No matter how great customer service is offered to your client, chances are you’ve harmed your relationship with them. Also, let’s not forget the time you will be spending to replace the materials. This downtime can have a large cost on even a small job site. Most importantly, your insurance premiums have a large chance of increasing as well. It’s not at all uncommon for job sites to follow poor theft-preventative measures. More and more often, we are seeing that an insurance company will offer you a better insurance cost if you take just a few measures to prove you are of lesser risk than most of their clients. Even if you don’t get the rate reduction to your insurance policy that you were hoping for, you just drastically cut the chances of your construction business or job site becoming a victim. Here are just a few things that you can do:

Make sure to use different keys for each piece of equipment from tractors to sheds and even tool boxes.

Each night and weekend, keep a strict lockdown protocol. For example, you can invest in nighttime lighting or cameras to make sure criminals don’t see you as an easy target.

Another option, add sturdy fencing to your site and maintain minimal access points that someone can walk or drive into.

Make sure that all construction buildings are locked and closed at all times. Keep records of everything that comes and goes on the site including their product identification numbers.

Ensure that each employee that is allowed access on site has undergone a strict background check.

Prevent any possible data breach by keeping the most up to date security software on your computers and servers.

Update and Upgrade Your Safety Procedures

Through improving and updating the safety requirements you have on site, you can save hundreds on your general contractor’s insurance. Did you know that you could also save on your taxes by doing this? Many construction companies that have a great safety score can actually get tax breaks from the government. This doesn’t even include the saving you can have on medical costs since your workers will now be less likely to receive bodily injury. A great example of this update is to require modern and updated scaffolding and protection for all roofing contractors on your job site. Other examples can include head protection, fall protection, and electrical protection. These should be required for all workers and passersby on and around the site. You should always strive to go well beyond required minimums for protection and safety. Furthermore, make safety a top-down concern. Use the culture of your business to ensure that everyone from the business owner to intern cares about these new requirements. Then, extend these rules to any subcontractors that come onto your job site as well.

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